What photo takes you right back to Japan?

Summarise Japan in three words.

Delicious – “Oishi” was one of the handful of Japanese words that we learnt and it was used often, to the delight of restaurant owners.

Contrasts – From ancient temples and shrines to bright lights and high-tech, from densely populated urban areas to completely unpopulated areas of natural beauty, Japan is definitely a country of contrasts.

Omotenashi – This word which means Japanese hospitality really sums up our experience of the Japanese. When we were in Russia, we remarked on the generosity and kindness of its people, in Japan it seems that everyone is trying to make sure you have a good impression of the country, from old ladies who pressed sweets and biscuits on us, to men in bars ordering us food and drinks, to the overwhelming helpfulness of just about anyone who we asked for help.

You really know you’re in Japan when…

…you’re looking at one of the top three “something” in Japan. I don’t know whether it’s a mixture of modesty (not wanting to declare themselves the best) and boastfulness (really thinking that they are the best) or a love of order that ranks everything into lists, but it seemed like every sight we visited was ranked in some way although it was rarely stated what order or what the other two were. The most memorable example that we saw was the Ohkonotaki Waterfall on Yakushima – ‘one of the top one hundred waterfalls in Japan’ – seriously, who compiled that list?!

What one item should you definitely pack when going to Japan?

Walking shoes. We were both surprised by how many outdoor activites we found in Japan and how accessible they are.

One of the best things about travelling is noticing the differences. In many ways Japan is similar to the U.K. which only added to the contrast when we spotted the weird and the wonderful. Without further ado, here’s a random list of things that made us smile during our 3 months in Japan..

There are drinks vending machines on just about every street corner. Sometimes they stand together in pairs and have staring contests with the pair of vending machines on the opposite corner.

Vending machines have taken over Japan. This one was lurking at a temple, and they even climb mountains. Rumour has it there’s one at the top of Mt Fuji..

Japan is a very clean country, but you’ll rarely see a litter bin. There are bottle bins next to most vending machines, and we occasionally found recycling bins, but public cigarette ashtrays are more common than general waste bins. We later learned that the Japanese thinking is this: rubbish bins attract rubbish.

Yes, it’s true – the Japanese queue in an orderly fashion for everything, especially trains and subways. It made us a little homesick.. ;o)

The red and green men at pedestrian crossings are smartly dressed and wear hats.

It’s all in the details. Pedestrian crossing lights in Japan are properly attired

Train guards bow when entering each carriage, and turn to bow again before leaving.

Toilet seats are heated and often include bidets and spray functions. This should be the standard across the world – they’re fantastic!

Japanese toilet controls. This one also includes a “flushing sound” to mask one’s embarrassment of a Delhi belly

Speaking of toilets, bathrooms often have their own slippers to save getting your normal slippers (or socks) dirty, even some public bathrooms in palaces, temples or shrines!

Most restaurants don’t have English menus, but it doesn’t matter because either the menus have pictures or there’s an elaborate display of fake plastic food outside. Note that the more expensive food is generally pictured in menus and the translated menu may not have all the choices of the Japanese version.

Plastic food outside a restaurant in Japan

“Hai” means “yes” in Japanese, but it’s used so frequently that it’s more akin to “yep”, “OK”, and “right” or “correct” in English.

Ink stamps are everywhere. Every museum, historic point of interest and hiking trail will have at least one custom rubber stamp on a chain with an ink pad. Top tip for visiting Japan – take a small notebook with you to collect the stamps in!

Business hotels often provide yukata, which are simple wrap-style Japanese nightgowns, and slippers.

Manhole covers are often specific to the town, city or area, and have wonderfully creative and colourful designs.

Different designs on the manhole covers around Japan, often in colour and usually feature a motif or landmark of the area. Clockwise from top-left: Gassho-zukuri houses in Shirakawago; Deer in Nara; Momotaro fire-fighting in Okayama; The peony from Kumamoto

As well as the fantastic public gardens, we’ve found that the Japanese take great pride in the appearance of their private gardens too. We’ve yet to see one that wasn’t beautiful and well organised. The same goes for their allotments!

Japanese private gardens and allotments are as well ordered as the public ones

The Japanese love their bicycles. They like to ride them on the pavement, they rarely have lights (or if they do, they rarely use them) and when it’s raining, they can cycle while carrying an umbrella!

Japanese man on a bicycle holding an umbrella. Even if the bicycle has a bell, the Japanese are too polite to use it, instead they purposefully neglect their bicycle so the chain and gears are rusty and the brakes squeal so you as a pedestrian can hear them coming up behind you

More people smoke than we were expecting, and smoking in restaurants and bars is still permitted. There are restrictions being applied to shopping centres and streets, and some restaurant chains have glassed-off smoking areas or are completely non-smoking.

Japan is a very safe place, and there’s very little theft – we even saw people leave their cars running with the doors unlocked and windows open outside convenience stores while they nipped inside!

This max’d out Nissan 350Z was left running in the car park of a 7-11 while the owner nipped inside for a pack of cigarettes. We saw so many cars left running outside shops, and delivery scooters with the keys in them!

Digital cameras and camera phones are required by law to make a shutter noise, to deter sneaky snapshots (source).

Fruit and veg are priced per piece and not by weight, including apples, onions and even potatoes!

.. and speaking of apples, they’re huge, like the size of lawn bowls huge.

School seems to be more day trips than sitting in classrooms because we saw so many groups of schoolchildren visiting historic sights and museums.

Us with a group of schoolchildren having just practiced their English with us in Kyoto. We saw so many groups of kids that school in Japan must consist entirely of day trips!

Cash machines only dispense ¥10,000 (£60) notes, but we’ve never had trouble getting one changed even in small shops and restaurants.

Babies and toddlers are often transported in trollies!

Can you think of a suitable caption? Post a comment below!

Street maps are already orientated, which is very handy once we’d realised it, but we were initially confused why North pointed in seemingly random directions!

We’ve eaten more fish since we got to Japan than we ate in the whole of the preceding year but, as we’ve discovered, there’s a lot more to Japanese cuisine than sushi.

Where to eat…

Although food is not cheap in Japan it is possible to eat out reasonably inexpensively (under £6) in noodle restaurants, or similar fast-food type places, and many restaurants offer inexpensive lunch set meals. Izakayas are like the Japanese equivalent of British pubs and they are among our favourite places to have a drink and a meal. In them, food is served in smallish portions for sharing, like Spanish tapas, and there’s always a drunk salaryman sitting down the counter ready to engage you in conversation despite having no shared language! We’ve found food quality to be excellent everywhere.

Fish, fish, fish

When you think about Japanese cuisine you’ll almost certainly think of sushi. We’ve had it from conveyor belt restaurants and boxed from the supermarket but without a doubt it’s best when served freshly made. There’s usually a small slick of wasabi between the fish and the rice, just enough to give it a kick but hopefully not enough to make your eyes water.

Sushi (clockwise from top left): tuna is the king of sushi fish, fatty and medium-fatty tuna freshly made at a restaurant in Tsukiji market; mackerel sushi bought in Kanazawa station; mouthwatering salmon sushi takeaway box from a fish market on Kyushu

Sliced raw fish without the ball of rice is called sashimi. It’s usually served with a big pile of shredded daikon radish and sometimes with plain rice on the side. Dipped in soy sauce and at its freshest it just melts in the mouth.

A plate of sashimi from a fishmonger in Kanazawa

We’ve had small fillets of grilled fish too, sometimes as part of a buffet or set meal and often one of the oily fish like salmon or mackerel. Squid and octopus are also common. We ate both freshwater eel and conger (sea) eel, both served grilled on top of rice with various condiments (spring onion, dried seaweed…).

Clockwise from top left: a whole grilled squid; minced fish cake; grilled eel served on rice in Nagoya; a small grilled fish as part of our breakfast meal in Tsumago

Meat

Just as the fish in Japan is fresh enough for sushi and sashimi, the meat is also of high enough quality to serve raw. We had ‘basashi’, or horse meat sashimi, in Matsumoto and tender beef sushi in Takayama just flashed under a blowtorch, and of course the lightly grilled wagyu steak in Kobe.

Basashi – horse meat sashimi

At the cheaper end of the spectrum, deep-fried breaded pork fillets, called tonkatsu, often form the protein component of a meal. Variations made with chicken are also common. Slices of roast pork are the usual topping for bowls of ramen noodles. We didn’t see lamb or mutton on the menu anywhere.

Delicious tonkatsu meal in Kyoto

Noodles

We have found three main types of noodles in Japan – ramen (egg noodles), udon (fat noodles), and soba (made from buckwheat). Soba noodles may also be served cold with the stock on the side as a dipping sauce. Supposedly, this allows the flavour of the noodles to come through and it’s actually much better than it sounds.

In noodle soup shops we’ve found that you usually don’t order from a waiter or waitress but by paying for what you want at a vending machine by the door and handing over the ticket that it prints out at the counter. That’s all very well if, like this one, it has pictures and English but we’ve had lucky dip noodles before by just choosing a random button!

Japanese noodles (clockwise from top left): ramen are commonly topped with roast pork; udon noodles with raw egg, mixed through the hot noodles with soy sauce we thought of it as Japanese carbonara; cold soba noodles with mushrooms from the convenience store; ‘hoto’ noodles are a specialty of the area north of Mt Fuji, these ones were served in a deliciously savoury beef broth

Onigiri

Onigiri are balls of cooked rice often with a small filling of meat, fish or vegetables. For us they’ve been a reliable option for packed lunch from any convenience store or supermarket. Because of the shape of the convenience store version we call them ‘rice triangles‘. I love the ingenious packaging which keeps the seaweed away from the rice and hence dry and crisp when you come to eat it. It depends on the shop but they rarely have pictures on (and never any English) so choice is generally pot luck. A grilled version flavoured with soy or miso is available in izakayas and we’ve found it to be a good filler amongst all the protein options.

Convenience store ‘rice triangles’ and a grilled version in an izakaya

Tempura

You might have come across tempura before. It’s deep-fried vegetables and fish in a light and airy batter. Most tempura restaurants had a set meal of tempura on rice with miso soup which was cheap and tasty, but it’s a common dish in izakayas too. It is always fried to order and so very fresh and crispy. We always save the prawn until last, but I like the slice of kambocha pumpkin too, and in one izakaya we had a sweetcorn version containing a slice from a corn cob – yum!

A tempura set meal

Gyoza

Japanese dumplings are one of Andrew’s favourites and he always orders them as a side dish with noodle soup. I was unenthusiastic about them until we went to a gyoza izakaya where the range of fillings and cooking methods was wide. We had them boiled, fried on one side (the most common way of cooking), deep fried and with pork, vegetables, and even whole prawns inside the dumpling wrapper.

Japanese curry

Somewhat reminiscent of fish’n’chip shop curry sauce we found Japanese curry to be a cheap, filling and comforting meal. It is usually a large portion of rice topped with a piece of deep-fried breaded meat (often chicken or pork) and covered with curry sauce. A special mention should be made for the oxtail beef curry which we had at a tiny restaurant near our apartment in Tokyo – something that I’m dying to try to replicate as soon as I return to my Le Creuset pot and a good source of oxtail.
If you need your curry on the go you can pick up a curry doughnut from a bakery!

Yakitori

Yakitori literally translates as grilled chicken but it’s so much more – skewers of all kinds – meat, fish and vegetables.

The open kitchen in a yakitori izakaya, grilled chicken and skewered prawns

Okonomiyaki

A specialty from Osaka and Hiroshima which have different styles. We tried the Hiroshima version – pancakes, cabbage, noodles, sauce, fillings (mixed seafood and oysters in the ones we had) are piled high and served on a hotplate.

Andrew anticipating tucking into okonomiyaki in Hiroshima

Soy

Products made from soybeans permeate Japanese cuisine. Soy sauce is used as a seasoning and a dipping sauce for sushi and sashimi, edamame or soybeans cooked in the pod are a common and tasty beer snack or starter, tofu of various kinds fills the supermarket chiller section which would be devoted to cheese back home, a bowl of miso soup is included as part of every set meal and natto, or fermented soybeans, are eaten as a breakfast food.

Clockwise from top left: Edamame; a cube of tofu as part of a set meal; slimy natto is a taste we didn’t manage to acquire; a different kind of tofu as a topping for noodle soup

Regional specialties

Despite the ubiquitous nature of much of Japanese cuisine, each region still has specialties which it is very proud of. From okonomiyaki in Hiroshima to lots of foreign influences in Nagasaki, different kinds of noodle dishes everywhere, and fresh peaches in Okayama.

Regional specialities (clockwise from top left): gohei mochi from the Nagano and Gifu regions of central Japan is a cake made from pounded rice, coated in a sweet nutty sauce and cooked over a charcoal grill; champon is a noodle dish from Nagasaki, its glutinous sauce and bamboo shoots betrayed its Chinese influenced origins; Kakuni Manju, tender roast belly pork in a steamed bun is another Nagasaki specialty from its Chinese immigrants; the area around Kagoshima in southern Kyushu is known for the quality of its ‘black’ pork (from the local black-skinned pigs)

Vegetables

For all its reputation as a very healthy cuisine we’ve found Japanese food to be very lacking in vegetables (restaurant food anyway) with the exception of the many varieties of pickled vegetables, a small dish of which accompanies every meal. The most common is some form of daikon radish, the enormous Japanese radish that is more like the size and shape of a giant white carrot. The only exception seems to be tonkatsu meals which are served with half a plate of shredded white cabbage only just made palatable by the addition of some sesame oil dressing.

A typical small plate of pickled vegetables

Bento boxes

When we weren’t eating rice triangles for lunch a good option was to buy a bento box from the supermarket or convenience store. A mini feast, it will have a good portion of rice, some pickled vegetables and some form of protein, maybe a piece of salmon or katsu pork or prawns or a square of omelette or some combination of these. Then you’ll have a little sachet of soy sauce, and disposable chopsticks and a wet wipe from the cashier, and you’re all set for a picnic!

Baked goods and sweets

Breads tend to be soft, sweet and white with the exception of the expensive European style breads from upmarket bakeries that we gorged ourselves on in Tokyo. Similarly, cakes are usually extremely light and wispy in texture with extra sweet icing. We became obsessed with finding the small pancakes sandwiched together with margarine and super sugary syrup from the 7-11 convenience stores – just as trashy as they sound but completely addictive.

More traditional Japanese ‘sweets’ are often not actually very sweet. Mochi, made from pounded rice, are shaped into small balls with a variety of flavourings. Green tea is used as a flavouring more often than it ought to be in my opinion… Red beans, aduki beans cooked until very soft and gloopy, are also a frequently used ingredient.

Drinks

Nearly every time we sat down in a restaurant or cafe we were automatically given a glass of iced water which is a really nice touch especially if you’ve been out and about on your feet all day. Occasionally it was a cup of hot or, more often, iced tea also without charge and with as many refills as we wanted. About half of the time it was green tea, and half of the time a brown coloured beverage which we found to be vaguely reminiscent of buckwheat. I think that this was made from roasted barley, but we definitely tried a version made from roasted soybeans too.

Beer was the most common form of alcohol that we drank. Due to some kind of strange tax loophole, the main breweries also produce something which is called malt drink. This more or less tastes like lager, and has a similar alcoholic content, but because it doesn’t contain hops it is around a third cheaper, so that was our carry-out drink of choice most of the time. And no trip to Japan would be complete without some sake (rice wine) drinking. We also tried its cousin, shochu, a spirit made from sweet potato, which tastes more like vodka. It was especially common in the far south of Kyushu with local varieties available in both Kagoshima and Yakushima.

I’d been looking for the bonkers Japan since we arrived, and Tokyo delivered. Sure, it’s a capital city much like any other in that it’s full of well-dressed people in a rush to get somewhere, but when the Tokyoites relax, they have an almost unthinkably crazy selection of things to choose from. Here are a few of the ones we were brave enough to try, with a few of my other favourite sights in Tokyo.

Shibuya Crossing

Shibuya’s scramble crossing, one of the busiest in the world and a common meeting place before a night out

The final closing scene of Fast and Furious 6 with an amazing 360 shot of Shibuya crossing

The Lockup

The Lockup, one of the many themed restaurants in Tokyo

While researching places to eat, I discovered the genre of “entertainment restaurants” and knew this was something we had to try. I decided on “The Lockup” and once we’d found it we cautiously ventured down the stairs and opened the door to a dark, empty corridor. If this were any other restaurant we’d have thought they were closed, but we took a few steps in and triggered the lights on a barrel of toxic waste.. up ahead we could make out a hunched-over figure in an electric chair and all the while we were waiting for someone to jump out at us! The haunted castle-like entrance almost robbed us of our appetite, but we pressed on until we reached another door where we were greeted and asked to wait for a table.

A minute or so later a waitress dressed provocatively in a cross between an official police uniform and a frilly maid-cafe outfit recited the rules before putting me in handcuffs and leading us to our table!

Half of the menu was themed cocktails with names like “Electric shock”, “Human Experiment Z” and “Lethal Injection”, all served in laboratory glassware which was great fun.

A selection of the cocktails we ordered at The Lockup

The food was likewise themed and presented in creative ways, such as a crucifix-shaped pizza, “Friday the 13th Salad” and their speciality of “Charcoal Chicken” which looks so charred I wondered if my Uncle Bob had barbecued it ;o)

Our food had just arrived when suddenly the lights went out, a dramatic conversation between a husband and wife started playing over the speakers that quickly escalated into fear and screaming. No-one knew what was going on. The 2 girls on the table of 4 behind us swapped so the boys were near the door to our cell, and then we started hearing real screams from the restaurant that were getting closer.. it was pretty terrifying! I caught a glimpse of something in white rags run past our cell and heard what sounded like a fire-extinguisher going off before the dramatic music faded and the lights came back on! Whew!

Our food at The Lockup in Shibuya (left to right): Friday the 13th Salad (because it has 13 ingredients); Firebowl Beef which the waiter set on fire!; Crucifix-shaped Pizza; and their signature Charcoal Chicken

The cocktails were good fun, and I’d recommend the strongest ones as we couldn’t taste any alcohol in the medium ones. The food was pretty good which surprised us as we’d read mixed reviews, I’d say it was akin to good chain-pub food back home, lots of variety, freshly prepared and tasty too.

Akihabara – Electric City

One of the many electronic components stalls in Akihabara that specialise in one thing – LED lights, switches, enclosures, transformers or in this case, capacitors

Akihabara’s reputation for technology started in the 1920s with the opening of an electronic radio parts shop. One after another opened up nearby and soon the area was an electrical engineer’s heaven. While there’s still an area of electronics supply shops selling all manner of components and gadgets, nowadays Akihabara is consumer electronics, pop music sensation AKB48, geek culture, maid cafes, and of course, the thing we visited for – video game arcades!

The multi-floor arcade palaces of Akihabara: One of the two Taito arcades (this one is 7 storeys); Super Potato! – the Nintendo-focused 3 floors of second-hand games, like a bricks-and-mortar eBay, whose top floor is also a small arcade; Sega also have two multi-storey arcades – Club Sega is 7 storeys; and the Hirose Entertainment Yard – head straight to the 2nd floor!

Julie and I (OK, mostly I) playing video games. Oh yeah! From top-left: Rows of beat-em-ups; Generations of consoles in the excellent Super Potato!; An entire floor dedicated to Gunslinger Stratos 2; Me playing Mario Kart Arcade GP DX; One of the countless rows of shmups in Taito HEY; Julie concentrating hard playing Mario Kart Arcade GP DX (she also came 1st!); One of about 12 Lord of Vermillion III arcades that seemed to be the lovechild of DoTA and a CCG; Me in Super Potato reliving fond memories of the hours my brother Dan and I spent on Double Dragon; Plenty of inventive arcade games such as this one where you have to flip a table in rage!

The Taito HEY’s 2nd floor is full of shmups or “Shoot-em Ups” (side scrolling shooting games), many of which were released when my brother and I were at school and just getting into video games, and it was great wandering down the aisles like a digital memory lane. I just had to play a few of them for old-times sake ;o)

It was cool to see that the art of the video-game cabinet has moved on apace in Japan. There are entire floors given over to single titles like Gunslinger Stratos 2 and Ultra Street Fighter IV, where all of the machines are connected for multiplayer. Some looked like they were connected to the internet (to other arcades, perhaps?) which could mean city, country or world-wide battles and competitions, and Lord of Vermillion III seemed to involve buying or trading character cards, where the action was controlled by moving the cards on a special surface and issuing commands on a touch screen.

All of the arcades were really loud, and sadly we found them to be pretty smoky too. After a couple of hours Julie and I started getting headaches.

Koshikawa Korakuen Garden

Koshikawa Korakuen Garden – one the oldest and best preserved parks in Tokyo

If you’ve been following our adventure, you will already know that I love gardens, and especially Japanese ones. Surrounded by trees, streams and ponds it was easy to forget that we were in the centre of Tokyo – until the theme park next door started blaring dance music at 10am!

The “indoor garden” section of Koshikawa Korakuen attracts many artists trying to capture the beauty and tranquility

Koshikawa Korakuen is known for its bridges: The Tsutenkyo Bridge; and the Engetsukyo or “Full-Moon” bridge

After a 2 hour stroll, we read on the way out that the garden was originally 4 times its current size – now that’d be a lot of strolling!

Tokyo National Museum

Honkan – the main building of the Tokyo National Museum

The Tokyo National Museum is the longest running museum in Japan, and its collection is about 114,000 items of which only 4,000 are on display at any given time.

While many museums would try to display as many items as possible, the TNM’s starting point – the second floor of the Honkan building – presents just a handful of antiquities per era which gives a nice taster of the periods in Japanese history. The ground floor is then given over to rooms filled with antiquities by genre or type – Buddha statues, pottery and ceramics, samurai swords, theatre costumes, etc.

We loved the layout – it was a really good way of holding our interest and keeping our attention. All too often in museums we find ourselves fatigued at having looked at so many examples of one thing that they all tend to lose their importance.

We also visited the very zen-like building of The Gallery of Horyuji Treasures, which houses an exquisite collection of standing Buddha figures.

The Gallery of Horyuji Treasures. View of one of the many rows of Buddha figurines with “Standing Kannon Bosatsu” at the forefront, Asuka period 7th century; Closeup of a different depiction of Standing Kannon Bosatsu, Asuka period 7th century

Harajuku

Aside from the Japanese youth culture and fashion, there were a lot of street stalls advertising shows – which is what we assumed this guy dressed as a robot was doing!

Harajuku is a suburb of west Tokyo that sits between the exclusive boutiques of Omotesando and the bustle of entertainment in Shibuya, and is known for its sub-culture of alternative fashion style which young people dress up and show off at weekends. Their style inspired Gwen Stefani’s song Harajuku Girls – now you know what she was singing about!

Before heading into the heart of Harajuku, we paid a visit to the Meiji Jingu Shrine and we arrived in time to witness a wedding party parade through the main temple square.

A wedding party parade through the main square of the Meiji Jingu Shrine in Harajuku

My favourite photo of the day, (presumably) a Shinto priest waits for the signal to play the drum as part of the wedding ceremony at the Meiji Jingu Shrine in Harajuku

After the Meiji Jingu Shrine, our route through Harajuku took us down the unfortunately transliterated “Takeshita Street”, which was as busy as the Shibuya crossing!

Takeshita Street, the main shopping street for sub-culture fashion in Japan. And crepes filled with just about everything, including cheesecake. Yes, cheesecake in a crepe. Genius.

As I’d read, the dressed up locals are few and far between these days and the most outrageous costumes we saw were worn by some of the shop staff! However, our favourite shop of Harajuku was on Cat Street called B-Side Labels – touting original stickers with a distinctly Japanese attitude. I’m not really one for putting stickers on things, but had I spent more time in this shop I would have been converted, they’re fantastic!

B-Side Label in Cat Street, Harajuku. STICKER ALL THE THINGS!

Ghibli Museum

Plaque near the entrance to the Ghibli Museum. I’ve no idea why it’s in French!

Yes, Julie included the Ghibli Museum in her list of Tokyo highlights, but I had to include it in mine too. I loved the focus it has towards children; lots of little tunnels and walkways for kids to explore, and no set path through the museum – once you get your ticket (which includes 3 frames from an actual Studio Ghibli movie roll) and descend the staircase, where you go is up to you!

I also loved the attention to detail, like the face in this manhole cover in the courtyard

I hadn’t seen any Studio Ghibli movies before we arrived in Japan, I’m glad we watched a few before we visited, as it was fun to spot the characters hiding all over the building.

We spent almost 3 weeks in Tokyo (all of the time we had left on our 3 month entry stamp after our tour through central and southern Japan). It seems like that ought to be more than enough time to see everything, but before we arrived we had accumulated an immense list of places to see and things to do. Deciding that we didn’t want to be out from morning until night every day for 3 weeks, we pared the list down to about half its original size, leaving what we hoped would be a nice balance of different experiences. Here are some of my favourites.

Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography

There was no way this was ever going to be struck from the list, especially when we found out that one of the three exhibitions was the winning images from the World Press Photo 14 Awards. I find photojournalism thought provoking as well as often stunningly beautiful. Robin Hammond’s images of mentally ill people from various African countries in the aftermath of war or crisis still haunt me and I’m amazed by the courage that can take photos in circumstances like this:

Goran Tomasevic’s photo of a shell hitting the wall above rebels attacking a government checkpoint in Syria [image source: World Press Photo]

In stark contrast to the photojournalism, we also really enjoyed the exhibition ‘Presence or Absence’ showcasing the work of Japanese photographer Sato Tokihiro. He explores light in his art, which although quite different, reminds me now of James Turrell’s work that we saw on Naoshima. As well as images from pinhole cameras, he creates photos on a very long exposure with points or lines of light created by moving a flashlight (at night) or mirror reflecting sunlight (during the day) around in front of the lens. Knowing that much, it was interesting trying to work out how long an exposure would be required and how you would move to get the effect. I especially loved his images of trees.

Kabuki

Kabuki is a style of traditional Japanese theatre. I really wanted to see a performance but was a bit skeptical about whether I would like, or understand, it. The Kabuki-za theatre in Tokyo allows you to buy same day tickets by the act which is a good way to get a taster without having to sit through (or at least pay for) a full 4 hour performance, typically 3 or 4 unrelated acts with intervals.

Kabuki-za theatre outside and inside, us ready for the performance to begin

We joined the queue outside the theatre an hour before the start of the matinee performance (and 30 minutes before tickets went on sale). It’s possible to buy tickets for consecutive acts and as the first one was only half an hour we paid for the second act too which was a more substantial 90 minutes. Inside we found seats at the front of the top tier and rented headsets which explained what was being said and the significance of some of the cultural references which would have been lost on us as non-Japanese.

Although kabuki was developed by a woman in the early 17th century, the shogunate soon banned female actors from performing, worried about their delicate morals, and to this day both male and female parts are played by men. The acting style is quite melodramatic with the actors wearing magnificent costumes and thick white face paint, it incorporates dancing and there are onstage musicians too.

Posters advertising kabuki performances outside the theatre

The two acts that we saw were very different in content. The first was more or less an excuse for a long dance sequence with a very loose story tying it together whereas the second had a complicated and extremely far fetched plot with more twists and turns than an Agatha Christie novel. We were gripped although without the headphone explanations we would have been hopelessly lost!

Cat Cafe

Not sure this one is strictly speaking a highlight but it definitely falls under the category of ‘memorable experience’. We’d heard about cat cafes before arriving in Japan and the concept was intriguing, a kind of short term ‘pet rental’.

Kitties at Nyafe Melange cat cafe

Nyafe Melange is just round the corner from the apartment where we were staying. Cleanliness and welfare standards seemed to be high (we were required to wash and disinfect our hands before entering the cat room) although, perhaps inevitably, most of the furniture had scratch marks.

Nyafe Melange cat cafe

It was kind of like sitting in the living room of the house of someone with a lot of cats, except that the cats weren’t as interactive or playful as we’d expected, most were sleeping on small shelves on the wall or in the sun on the windowsill, but the young woman running the shop was friendly, handing us cats and telling us their names. She even managed to coax a couple of them into chasing one of the toys.

Mocha regarding our affections with disdain

So, in summary, I’ve ticked it off the list, it was fine, I probably wouldn’t go to another one. That said, we saw a Moomin cafe in the shopping mall of the Skytree complex where you drink your coffee beside a giant plushy Moomin, and maybe I could be persuaded to go there…

Tsukiji Fish Market

Tsukiji is the world’s largest fish and seafood market. According to the Lonely Planet, a mind-boggling 2400 tonnes of seafood a day are moved through it. It’s possible to visit the famous early morning tuna auctions here but having done a bit of research it seemed like they are extremely tight on the rules and as entry is on a first come first served basis you need to start queuing from around 4am which is before the public transport starts running. Given all that and the fact that we’d seen the fish auctions during our market tour in Kagoshima we decided to give the auctions here a miss and just look around the wholesaler’s area which is open to the public from 9am.

Wholesaler’s area of Tsukiji Fish Market

It is vast. Just stall after stall of weird and wonderful fish and sea creatures. We wandered along one of the aisles trying not to get in the way and wondering if we would ever reach the back wall. Eventually we did and it was well worth it because there we found an area where four fishmongers were processing enormous frozen tunas, trimming and quartering them using a massive band saw. We watched, enthralled, for about 10 minutes.

Industrial scale tuna carving

An array of different shapes at Tsukiji Fish Market

The site holds more than just fish, there’s also a large area for fruit and veg wholesalers and various supporting businesses selling everything from handmade Japanese knives (if we were coming straight home I would definitely have had one of those) to scales to wellington boots, with a healthy dose of souvenir shops sprinkled amongst them.

The tiny restaurant where we had a super fresh sushi lunch

Of course the morning ended with a sushi lunch at one of the on-site restaurants. They’re all quite small (say 12-15 seats) and the queue for some of them was about 40 people long! As we were hungry and it was raining we went against our usual advice and chose the one with the shortest queue. It’s a good job we did, because we still had to wait for more than half an hour to be seated, but it was definitely worth it!

Ghibli Museum

Studio Ghibli (pronounced “jiburi”) is a Japanese animation studio which has been producing films since 1985. It’s not strictly necessary to know anything about the films before visiting the Ghibli Museum but we watched four of them in advance and were very glad we did as it put us in the right frame of mind.

The first adventure was buying the tickets which you need to get well in advance for a specified date and entry time. The most straightforward option for us was to buy them from one of the kiosks situated in Lawson convenience stores. It’s all in Japanese but there are what looked like comprehensive instructions with screen shots on the museum’s website. Suffice to say we had to ask help from the shop’s staff on two separate occasions until it gave us the promised receipt which allowed us to pay for our tickets…

The museum is primarily aimed at children but there are plenty of magical things to keep big kids interested too. One of our favourites was the section on the first floor called “Where a Film is Born”, a series of rooms set up as animator’s studios packed with inspirational bits and pieces and with walls covered with artwork from the films. In a different area there was a spinning carousel which worked a little like a 3D flipbook (the fancy name is a 3D zoetrope) with character models in different poses and a strobe light to create the pauses.

Many of the museum’s windows contain stained glass decorated with characters from the films.

Museum details (clockwise from left): statue of the Robot Soldier from ‘Castle in the Sky’ on the roof, soot sprites from ‘My Neighbour Totoro’ trapped behind a porthole, the museum is covered in lush greenery

There is a small cinema onsite showing a 20 minute short which is exclusive to the museum. We saw ‘Looking for a Home’ which like many of Ghibli’s films features an independent and capable female protagonist. A girl packs her backpack with an unfeasibly large number of apples which she gifts to shrines, gods and animals along the way as she heads into the countryside for a camping trip. There was no spoken language in the film so it was easy to follow for everyone with just sound effects, it reminded me of the fantastic Pixar shorts which are shown before their feature films.

Tokyo Skytree

Tokyo’s TV and radio broadcasts used to be all transmitted by Tokyo Tower, a bright red Eiffel Tower lookalike, but as Tokyo’s urban environment got higher and higher it was realised that a taller structure was needed to send signals above the skyscrapers. And so Tokyo Skytree was born. When it opened in May 2012 it was the world’s tallest ‘free standing communication tower’ at 634m. And is still the world’s second tallest structure after the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

Tokyo Skytree

Judging by the miles of space cordoned off in the lobby they must expect a lot of visitors but it all looked rather comical at 9am as we walked straight through to the ticket desk past about six ladies in immaculate uniforms telling us ‘this way’ with not another tourist in sight. We ascended to the first viewing platform at 350m at the rather dizzying speed of 600m/min (over 22mph) – even faster than the lifts in the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.

There’s a nice exhibit of Skytree models in the lobby, each made using a traditional Japanese craft method and embodying a facet of the design, e.g. Shinbashira vibration- control system based on ancient architectural techniques using bamboo and symbolised with a model made in bamboo craft – nifty, no?

As you’d expect the view from the observation deck is pretty spectacular. It’s said that you can see for over 70km on a clear day including a view of Mt Fuji. Unfortunately, it rained pretty much every day we were in Tokyo so I’m not sure that June and July are the right time of year to see that far.

The view over Tokyo from the Tembo Observation Deck at 350m

Just before the lift back to the lobby there’s a section of glass floor from where you can see straight down the tower to the streets below. It doesn’t look too bad until you notice the size of the lorries on the street in the upper right.